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Saturday, 25 February 2012

Notting Hill Greengrocers And Pears

Trevor Pears: Maybe Charity Starts In Notting Hill

Pears Group recently acquired the 4.5 acre Notting Hill Estate....

Anonymous says,
"Peers Group is buying up the whole of Notting Hill Gate around the underground station and they will knock it down and redevelop the whole area.

The Council needs to keep a close eye on this and make sure that they are on the side of residents and don't get too "developer friendly".

Cllr Ahern is on point duty for this one. He is in charge of planning and has told friends that the Council has been far too developer friendly in recent years.

The menace Cllr Campion has been running around "consulting" for the last two years on the council's grand "vision" for Notting Hill Gate. This is one weasel who needs to be watched closely by the Dame"

Here is the irony....Trevor Pears backed Cameron's leadership campaign to the tune of £20,000. Cameron has also backed Mary Portas and her plans to save small retailers. One of her 'planks' was to persuade landlords not to strangle struggling retailers with huge rent increases and to reduce parking charges; an idea persistently ignored by RBK&C and other councils.

Pears Group is valued at over £1 billion: it can afford to be generous.

Maybe it needs to remind itself of it's own corporate responsibility statement.... "At the core of the Group’s philosophy is a recognition of its responsibility to our tenants, employees and society generally."And perhaps the Prime Minister should have a quiet word with his friends, the Pears family: after all, he was once resident of Notting Hill.But perhaps the Pears family could look to the example of the benevolent de Walden family.When Hugh Seaborn was CEO he took particular trouble over the small, independent retailers. It paid off. That is why Marylebone High Street is a pleasure to walk down. And that is why Seaborn bodes well for Cadogan.

Local Resident, Sophie Gunther writes...

Dear All

Please would you sign the petition and share this information to support our local pharmacy!

We are losing all our local shops – the fishmonger has gone, WHSmith has gone, Oddbins has gone and now both Tylers and our chemist Calder are under threat from ever increasing rent hikes from the landlord, the Pears Group, who owns this whole area.

We need to “live local” and support our local retailers. Please act to help keep our shops that support our valued community.

The council cop out is that Notting Hill Gate gets too crowded at the weekends when people crowd out of the underground for Portobello Rd and the pavements become dangerous. Therefore the whole area needs to be redeveloped.

Councillors and officers are adept at getting into the pockets of developers. Especially with Kensington land prices

I would just like to correct a couple of errors. Sophie Gunther is a local resident, not a local trader. Calder Pharmacy and Tylers hardware store have both in business for over 25 years, family run and serving generations of Notting Hill Gate residents. The correct link to support Calder is http://www.change.org/petitions/landlord-save-our-shop

A Tornado of development is about to hit Notting Hill Gate. Five years of dust, noise and grime and two huge craters either side of the highway around the tube station.

Just like the hole in the ground opposite Selfridges in Oxford Street, the Candy Bros development at One Hyde Park, and Chelsea Barracks.

At the end of it all there will be expensive new buildings, driven by current property values of £3,000 per square foot. Fortunes will be made, aided and abetted by greedy and self interested councillors and officials in Hornton Street.

But there is a serious question to be addressed. Should communities that have developed and become established over hundreds of years be ripped apart and replaced by something new? Central London is not a New Town.

HSBC's landlords demand £250k rent. HSBC closed - a disaster for Portobello Market. RBKC policy is to use its retail estate to support local communities. Yet it's just let a unit next to the Electric to an Italian gelaterie - 25 metres from another gelaterie.

It is clear that certain councillors and officers have undeclared commercial interests in making money from the destruction of local communities - even Conservative communities. This is why the Conservatives very nearly lost a recent by election in Holland Park of all places. Just think of the implications.

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